Michi Photostory

I was busy celebrating our couple's anniversary and wedding anniversary and I forgot that last week was also my 12th blogversary. Time is ticking so fast and I did not imagine that I will be blogging this long. Nowadays, people prefer watching videos so the majority of the content creators are now on YouTube, Tiktok, and Instagram Reels so why do I still blog? 

Several days ago, my website views were decreasing which is odd because even I am not blogging, I still have blog traffic. But I did not mind it because I am not really after the page views because I just want to blog. And I am in the mood of finishing my backlogs and all of a sudden, I can no longer view my website. "I'm back doing everything I used to do, loving life as ever." Donna MillsUpdate: 

Tom Stoppard said, “Every exit is an entry somewhere else”. I can clearly remember that this was the month when I handed my resignation and it’s been thirteen years already since I quit my corporate job. Looking back, I did not even dream to become a full-time mom and it is completely out of the picture. In my mind, I just wanted to have a baby and I can go back to work after my maternity leave. 

Exactly 10 years ago, I started my blogging journey and I never imagine that I will hit my tenth blogging anniversary. Blogging is my “me-time and until now even I’m busy with other things, I still try to find time to update my blog”. Last year, I got derailed but this year, I miss blogging so I unplugged myself with client work to give time to my first love which is blogging and crafting. When in doubt, always remember why you started and why you do what you do.

"No matter how clueless you may feel right now, pay attention to suggestions and opportunities that suddenly present themselves...Take the first step in the direction toward something that feels right and see where it leads you. And do it NOW" - Jen Sincero



Stay at Home Mom 

Time flies so fast and I could not believe that it has been twelve years already since I became a stay-at-home mom or a full-time mom. If you think that being a full-time mom is effortless, then you are definitely wrong. It is not really easy; in fact, it is more stressful than working in the corporate world. When my baby came, my life gradually changed because this time, I had little time for myself. It is really hard to become a wife, a mother, and a maid rolled into one.

Choosing to be a stay-at-home mom is not an easy decision for me because I know that I have to give up my career and future income. But still, I am proud and happy because I am always with my son from the time he was born until now. I feel blessed because not all mothers have the chance to be with their children. I witnessed his first cry, first smile, first laugh, first tooth, first crawl, first step, first word, and other milestones. I am present on special occasions and school events.

The joy of being with my son doesn’t mean that I am always on cloud nine because there are challenges and struggles too. The journey is not simple especially if you are not used to it, there are also times that I cried because I miss working and I want to have my own “me time”. But still, I never regret that I chose this path because even I do not have a salary, I know deep in my heart that it is a rewarding career.

Read: How Motherhood Changed Me
Unexpected Joys of Motherhood 
The Mom You’re Meant to be
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Stay at Home Mom
Things You Should Never Say to a Stay at Home Mom

If you are a stay-at-home-mom like me and if there are times that you feel depressed or unfulfilled, don’t worry because it is just normal. You can read the “Professionalizing Motherhood” book by Jill Savage. This book really helps me a lot and makes me realize that being a full-time mom is a valuable career choice and there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Stay at home moms do not mean that we are lazy and uneducated because we are not, we just choose our kid/s over career because we feel that this is the best decision for our own family. Instead of focusing on the negative things, look for an opportunity to do the things that you cannot do if you are still working or take advantage of the time to learn new skills.

Read: The Day I Learned How to Bake my Own Bread
The Day I Learned How to Sew 
The Day I Learned How to Crochet 

Work from Home Mom 

When I decided to resign from work, I know that it would be difficult for me because I am not used to being at home. Two months after graduation I already started working so choosing to be a stay-at-home mom is really a challenge. I enjoy the first two months because I have time for myself, no work, no more graveyard shift, and no more deadlines. Aside from the usual household chores, most of the time I watch TV, surf the internet, bake cupcakes, and read magazines and pregnancy books.

But after two months I really feel bored because I cannot do anything and I am stuck at home. I have all the time in the world but I cannot go on vacation because I was on bed rest for few months, I do not want to spend money since I no longer have a salary and I have no companions since they are all working.

After three months of not working, I worked as a real estate agent but it is not easy so I stop before giving birth. After several months, I became a mompreneur, I opened my online store (www.mcsstore.multiply.com), it all started because I want to sell my son’s preloved baby stuff and then I decided to resell some products. I closed my online store because I don’t have time for shipping or meet-ups.

I tried my luck and applied to be a ghostwriter. Honestly, I don’t consider myself a writer, because I hate English subjects during my school days. I just took the risk and applied to be a content writer and fortunately I was hired. I have been writing for eight months and I decided to resign because it’s eating my time and I felt guilty because I have no time for my son. It reminded me of the reason why I resigned so I focus on being a stay-at-home mom.

Mom Blogger 

Quitting my online job leads me to blogging. I started my own blog where I can freely write and share my story during my free time. This year 2020, Michi Photostory is already 9 years old, I never thought I would come this far. My blog may not be popular and it may not have a lot of followers but I am happy to help those people who stumbled on this blog.

This blog allows me to earn a little through ads, sponsored posts, paid insert links, and other blogging opportunities. The passive income helps me to support my hobbies, buy the things that I want, save, and invest.

Read: Why I Love Being Mom and Blogger
7 Things I’ve Learned in 7 Years of Blogging

It is not just about the earnings but this blog is the reason why I learned and developed some skills like graphic design and social media management. These skills allow me to have a freelance career. Yes, I’m back to being a work-from-home mom but this time, I only accept short-term projects or part-time work. I’m still a work in progress because it’s been years since the last time I applied for work. I feel like a fresh college graduate student who has no idea how I'm going to sell myself in a job interview.

Check Michiscape Facebook Page and Michiscape Instagram

In a span of 12 years, I became a stay-at-home mom, mom blogger, and work-from-home mom. I know that my journey as a full-time mom will not end and it is still counting. But I’m thankful to God for opening doors so I can enjoy being a mother and at the same time, earn while I’m in the comfort of my home. I just hope and pray that as I walk this path, I will learn to enjoy and appreciate more my chosen career.

Read: Working Moms vs Full-Time Moms 

I love decluttering and it became part of my life, I used to hoard stuff before for sentimental value sake but as the years go by, I learned to let go most of my stuff. I don’t just declutter our home but I also declutter my laptop files, my emails, my blog, and social media. Yes, I delete emails, files, photos that I no longer need. I update my old posts, delete blog posts and social media posts that no longer serve any purpose. I believe that there is no good reason to keep them.



September 7,2018

Out of the blue, I checked my Twitter Profile last week and I was surprised because I have 20,500+ tweets. Woah! I’m not really active on twitter but I have 20,500 tweets. Anu-ano ang mga yun? Then I realized that everytime I declutter, I forgot to include my Twitter and I guess I have never deleted any tweets since I started last October 2009.

At first, I was curious what were my tweets look like when I started so I search “How I can Find my Old Tweets”. I used Advanced Search, write my twitter handle, choose the date and click search but for some reasons, this is not working. I can’t find my old tweets. I can’t view per year too. I also tried typing this “from:username since:yyyy-mm-dd until:yyyy-mm-dd” on the Twitter Search button but same fate. So I have no choice but to start deleting my recent tweets until I reach year 2009. I’m so crazy.

Twitter has no option of “Delete All Tweets” or “Delete Multiple Tweets”. I have 20,500 tweets and I was estimating that I can finish this before September ends if I will delete 1000 tweet per day. But I got carried away in deleting my tweets, I started September 2018 until I reached November 2017 tweets and then Twitter stopped displaying my tweets. My Profile shows that I still have 17,200 Tweets but I can’t view anything. And because of that, I learned that “Twitter only displays 3,200 most recent tweets and old tweets cannot always be displayed”. Boom! Two days pa lang ko nagdedelete, nasira na plan ko.

I don’t know how long will I wait for the Twitter to display my Tweets. I know that I can use some service Apps like TweeterDelete, TweeterEraser, and TwitWipe but at that time I don’t want to use any app because it means I have to enter my information pa. My husband even suggested to just delete my Twitter account and start again. Grabe, ang harsh naman ng suggestion. Yes, I can easily do that, I did that with my Facebook Page, Google +, YouTube and even my Email Subscription but one thing I knew, ang hirap magpaincrease ng followers noh. As if sikat ako, lol.

September 9, 2018

And because of the deletion limits, I can no longer delete any more tweets but I did not lose hope. I tried searching for my tweets using keywords. I’m pretty sure that I shared most of my blog posts, on the search button, I type my twitter handle and keywords like travel, trip, recipes, DIY, tips, giveaways, and more. Then I started deleting my tweets and I’ve been doing this for the past few days.

I’m just deleting my old tweets not because I want to hide something or because I posted something na nakakahiya. I am just doing a maintenance so I erased my tweets from my old blogs like My Other Nook, Mrs. Ugly Duckling and Michi Home Sweet Home. I deleted the giveaways, press release, discounts, sales, and promo posts that no longer matters. And because I want a fresh start, I want to delete all.

September 13, 2018 

From 20,500 tweets, I was down to 1,600+ tweets but my dilemma is I can no longer think of any keywords, wala na ko maisip na pwede ko pa isearch. Then I checked my Twitter Profile and I was surprised that Twitter already updated my tweets (after 4 days). Yey, so I erased the remaining tweets and finally no more tweets.

September 14, 2018 




I have zero tweets but as of this writing when I checked my Twitter Profile, bigla nagkaroon ng 9 Tweets pero wala na naman ko nakikita. But anyway, I’m happy that my Twitter Problem is now solved. Fresh start and I promised myself that I will include this in my blog and social media clean up every year. Since 3,200 tweets lang naman ang dinidisplay so yun na ang sign ko.

"Sometimes the best way to be happy is to learn to let go of things you tried hard to hold on to that are no longer good for you"

My only regret is, I did not download a backup copy of my tweets and I don’t even have a picture of my Twitter Profile when I reached 20,500+ Tweets for souvenir sake.

Are you keeping your tweets?

Many internet users do not know the importance of hiding their IP addresses. Many do not know the purpose of an IP address. The IP address or the Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to every computer or to mobile device. The IP address provides our location whenever we accessed any website online and it can track our activity while we visit the various sites. The Internet is not as simple as most of us think.

February is my favorite month because there are so many special events in my life. One of those events is my Blog Anniversary. I don’t usually write blogversary post but this time I will because this year is my 7th year blogging anniversary. Yey! I can’t believe that I’m blogging for years because, to be honest, it is not easy to maintain a blog. 

I’ve been blogging since 2011 but most of my posts only include pictures because honestly, I don’t know how to put videos on my blog before. Hehehe! I tried uploading in YouTube but it takes time because I have very slow internet (up to 2MBPS only) so tinatamad ko.



My son is a fan of YouTube and he really likes watching videos. Ever since he was a kid, I always filmed his performance in school then I will upload on my Facebook (for family). He always asks me, “Did you video me, Mommy?” or “May I see my video?”. He will watch his videos for the nth time. 

But I feel that my videos are low quality so I don’t share it in my social media but when my husband gifted me iPhone 6 last year (birthday gift), feeling ko, ok na videos ko, HD quality na. Lol. Who will watch blurred videos di ba? So that’s the time that I shared videos on my Instagram. 

Last February, my husband gifted me Fuji XA2. Yehey, I can now record 15 minutes video so that is the start of my Michi Photostory Channel. I started uploading videos last summer, so far I have 45 videos.

I’m not a pro so I’m still learning how to edit videos but my son is satisfied in watching his YouTube videos. There was one time, he went home and he said, his classmates said to him, “I saw you on YouTube”. So I was happy na may “reach” na videos ko even I have few subscribers. 

But last month, out of the blue I searched for my website and then I discovered that there are two websites that uploaded my videos. I tried to report it na but when I visited the site again, nandun pa rin. As in, one page, nandun yung videos ko and take note ang title talaga “Michi Photostory Channel”. 

I don’t know why there are people who will do this. I don’t know how he can earn from uploading all my videos on his site. The site is in different language pa so I don’t really understand why. This makes me sad, so I asked helped in “Ask Pinoy Bloggers” FB group and they are generous enough to give me tips.

One person advised me to turn off my embed code in my You Tube videos. I have 40+ videos at that time so it took me hours just to remove the embed code. In addition, I have to edit my blog posts too, because it will also affect my videos. 

Nakakainis di ba, hindi ko na tuloy magamit yung own video ko sa blog ko because I will turn off the embed code. But this is the only way I know to prevent bad guys to use my videos in their website. So if you have YouTube, you might want to turn off the embed code. 

How to Turn off Embed Code in YouTube Video

1. Sign-in to your YouTube Account 
2. Go to Creator Studio, Video Manager and Videos. 
3. Choose the Video and click Edit Button 
4. At Info & Setting Tab, click Advance settings. 
5. Look for Distribution Options and uncheck the “Allow Embedding” 
6. Save Changes.

If you have Playlist

1. Click on Edit Button. 
2. Click Playlist Settings. 
3. Uncheck the “Allow Embedding” 
4. Click Save 

Hope this helps.

February is my favorite month, it is really a love month because I always celebrate three events that is very special to me. February is our boyfriend/girlfriend anniversary. I said yes to my ex-boyfriend on Valentine’s Day and we’re in our 11 years and still counting. We had an early dinner in Bulgogi Brothers to celebrate Valentine’s Day and couple anniversary. Since we’re on a budget, I told my husband not to buy anything, no flowers and chocolates. I decided to bake to surprise him.


But I was also surprised when he came because he bought a cake. Waaah! I felt na nasayang effort ko and how can we finish these two cakes in less than 24 hours.

February is Michi Photostory anniversary, yay! my blog is already three years old. I was not able to blog on that day because we’re in Kuala Lumpur. But I would like to thank you for taking time out of your day in reading my blog.

Actually, maintaining a blog is not easy because it takes a lot of time in composing and editing pictures. It is quite an expensive hobby especially if you are paying for your domain and if you have crashed laptop. I’ll share that in my next post.

But I’m happy in sharing our travel, food trip and part of my life. Hoping to inspire others to travel more, to try a new restaurant and to enjoy being a domesticated diva or just live a happy life. I’m happy to say that the pageview of this blog is increasing but I just notice that few people are leaving a trace. I seldom see comments on my post. I don’t know if is because of the google reader or Facebook page issue that you can’t see my post. Anyway, if you’re interested to read my post, I suggest you subscribe to my mailing list.

Moving on, the last celebration that I celebrated last month is our 8th Wedding Anniversary. We’re in Universal Studio Singapore last February to celebrate. Yes, we’re back in Singapore after 7 years. FYI, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary in Singapore. Will share our experience soon.

I’ve been blogging for more than 2 years now and I started with zero knowledge because all I wanted is to create a post and publish so until now I’m still learning. Yesterday I’ve learned about broken links, actually I have no idea about broken links and how it will affect my blog so I search for more details and here’s what I found. 



What is broken link?

A broken link is a link on a webpage that is no longer working. It is considered a dead link because it encounters errors, maybe because the link is no longer working or they attached an improper url. 


As a website owner, we need to “Check for broken links and correct HTML”. That is one of the 35 things that Google wants us to do to avoid a bad reputation that could decrease your page ranking. I do understand that because I always use Google in searching for information and I felt so disappointed if I will be directed to a dead link. It is such a waste of time. 

How to check your broken links?

There are free broken links checker and as of now I’m using this http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/

It is so easy to use; just type your URL and click find broken links. After few minutes you will get the status. On my first check, I’ve found out that I have 70 broken links out of 3000 pages. You will see bad code, 404 error and bad host.

I spent hours in removing those broken links and until now I’m not yet finished because after I removed the links, I will type my URL again and there are still more broken links. I know that it is a tedious task but I have to do it.

Are you new to blogosphere or currently building a brand name online? One of the things you should do to make it successful is to create your site’s brand image or commonly known as “logo” especially when it comes to bloggers. In this way, if you are going to take part of some events for instance, people could easily identify your site through the logo you have.

Two days ago my IP address has been blocked and I don’t know why. Every time I visit my blog I’m getting these errors and I can’t visit other blogs too.

Now, I’m celebrating my 2^nd year blogversary. I can’t believe that I’m blogging for two years already and though I have very limited time now I’m still trying to update this blog. Thank you to all my readers who still read and comment on my blog post.